Humor is infectious. It lightens burdens, inspires hope, connects us to others, increases our insight, keeps us grounded, focused, alert, and happy.
Laughter is a universal language that stimulates both sides of the brain. It allows us to get messages quicker and remember them longer. We all learn more when we are having fun. Writing this blog is a creative exploration in sharing thoughts that make me laugh, smile, or think. Thinking is the source of laughter. Welcome and have a nice day!

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Catharsis of the Heart

Catharsis of the Heart

A philosophical
explanation on the nature of love and hate

Someone once said that it is better to be hated for who you
are, than to be loved for someone you are not. The question of which is more
powerful – love or hate – takes us on a journey of self-discovery,
contemplating the very nature of the human condition and whether or not we can
escape from this catharsis of the heart.

Aristotlean theory describes how experiences bring to
surface personal subliminal responses from the depths of our being. However, unless
an individual has personally experienced either one of these emotions, the
notion would appear strange if not downright irrational.

Irrational is often times the word most commonly associated
with both love and hate. When immersed in either one of these emotions, we aestheticize
our self in another, feeling only the emotions that confirm or deny our
internal experience. Given that both feelings must be brought to the surface by
some external stimuli, the importance one places on either may be a matter of
biological functioning.

Hate, a brute emotion, crystallizes when conflict and angst
from the deepest levels of our being are stirred. Evidence of aggression in our
earliest ancestors indicates that hate might be biologically hard-wired into
us, supporting the evolutionary concept:

Survival
of the Fittest.

Love - that smile of the mind - is considered by most to be
healthy behavior. Loving feelings “move mountains” as they say, but they might instead
stem from a more primal, evolutionary aspect of self where love is merely part
of the process of natural selection.

On the surface, it seems that a radical difference exists between
love and hate, and yet, when you look deeper into your self for the origin of
where these feelings arise, it feels as if there is only a fine line between
them. This is because both experiences stem from the core of human functioning where
feelings reverberate in our entire beingness; where our deepest perceived sense
of self comes alive, carried away by either tragic or aesthetic enjoyment.

Whether biological or imaginational, it would seem that we are
hardwired with a readiness for both experiences, which need only a single
trigger to imbue any object with fantasized perfection or demonized
imperfection. Seeing love or hate in the dynamic unfolding of life is largely
dependent upon the balance of emotional needs we hold within us, revealing that
the power we give either emotion says more about us than it does about the
nature of love or hate.

Distinguishing which one is more powerful is as
personal as the experience itself. It is in this revelation that we understand
Shakespeare: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is
winged Cupid painted blind.”

"My Bad" (Disclaimer)

A number of the images I post are not my original artwork. Much is sent to me by friends, some I find on Facebook or floating around the Internet. Whenever possible, I site the original artist. If I cannot find the original artist, and YOU are the original artist or you know the original artist, please contact me so that I can site the work accordingly. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience. Please know, if your original artwork was used, it was used for good!